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Aboriginal mythology debuts on silver screen

By Madeleine Coorey

2 July 2006 - (Mail & Guardian online SA) - The subject matter was untested, the actors almost naked and the whole movie was to be made in a language spoken by only a tiny group of people -- but to film executive Brian Rosen, funding Australia's latest international film success, Ten Canoes, was a "no-brainer".

Even the fact that there was no conventional script, the cast was untrained and the set was a mosquito and crocodile-infested swamp in tropical northern Australia didn't stop the ground-breaking movie from going ahead.

Filmed on location in the remote Arafura swamp in north-eastern Australia's Arnhem Land, the Aus$2,4-million ($1,76-million) budget feature is the first to depict life in an Aboriginal community in the days before European invasion.

It switches between depictions of traditional life before contact with white people to more than a thousand years earlier during mythical times when the Aboriginal legends were formed.

"The one thing we felt when the project came in -- yes, it was directed by a white person -- but it was a very special story about indigenous mythology," said Rosen, chief executive of the Australian Film Finance Corporation. "On the one hand you could say that's pretty obscure, but on the other you could see it as a very important film."

Ten Canoes is the first Australian film to be shot entirely in indigenous language and its untrained cast comes mainly from the remote post of Ramingining where one of the native tongues is Ganalbingu, which is spoken by fewer than 4 000 people.

The movie revolves around the story of a young man, Dayindi, who has taken a fancy to an older man's wife. The older man, aware of Dayindi's feelings, decides to tell him an ancient legend on the same theme.

While previous movies about Aboriginal communities have portrayed some aspect of their interaction with the white Europeans who began arriving here more than 200 years ago, this is the first to delve into their stories before colonisation.

"We are going back to what it was like to live in Australia 1 000 years ago. The magical part of this film is that it's about their mythology," Rosen said. "For the first time ever you are seeing their mythology on film. This is one that's a no-brainer. It's something about Australia that no one has seen before."

The film's reception has proven Rosen right. Ten Canoes won a special jury prize at the Cannes International Film Festival and has been picked up for distribution in the United States and Europe.

Back home, the film has been welcomed by the local Aboriginal community, in which it has awakened hopes of a revival of traditional indigenous culture.

Filmmaker Rolf de Heer said he could not have made Ten Canoes without the assistance of the Ramingining community, which crafted the canoes, spears and housing needed for the movie and helped direct the narrative.

"It's unlike the normal way I would do a film because it's more I was a means by which I could make their story. I was, in a sense, their servant, in the best possible way I could be," he said.

"It was really me using the elements and parameters they gave me and fashioning that into something that would work for them and their community ... and the Western world so their culture could be recognised."

Source: Mail & Guardian Online SA

Further reading

David Gulpilil's tale of Ten canoes

ABC Northern Territory: Reporter: Fiona Churchman, Presenter: Cherie Beach

29 April 2004 - In recent years the stories of Arnhem Land have begun to be told in general release films.

Next wet season a film crew will descend on the middle of Arnhem Land to take the next step - telling a traditional story in traditional language, Yolgnu Matha.

The story is set 200 years ago before white people arrived in the area and will be directed by Rolf De Heer and David Gulpilil.

Rolf De Heer says the idea just came to him.

"I was pondering a couple of years ago when there were numbers of films with Indigenous themes and it seemed like a golden new era, and then of course nothing happens after that and I thought I wonder what the next step is, I wonder where one would go to from here and it struck me that it would be a great way to make a film and with David co-directing in his language and on his traditional land.

"I just thought woah, woah, woah, there's an idea," he says.

Rolf got stuck into making the idea a reality straight away and within days had flown to the Territory to speak to his future co-director.

He says David loved the idea and it was his concept to bring in the ten canoes and the goosehead gathering that used to take place at the Arafura Swamp, which adjourn David's fathers traditional lands.

"I think they have been looking for some time to restart that as a sort of semi-ceremonial thing as a traditional gathering activity I guess and it just all seemed to fit together and we began to work on it from that basis," says Rolf.

Rolf says the Ten canoes story is a simple one, but told in a complex way.

"It is a story that is told from the point of view of 200 years ago about mythical times and it has resonances for their current activities at that time, so its sort of a story in the form of a story being told," says Rolf.

Rolf says Ramingining is cautious about being excited about this project because so much is promised so often and
so little delivered.

"This process of making a film of course is a very lengthy one and they are cautiously optimistic but the proof will be in the pudding when we actually do it," he says.

He says they are trying to broaden it out so it isn't a case of a film crew arriving, filming and then leaving.

"We going to try and work with as small an introduced crew as possible, use as many locals as possible...also we have a mini documentary project with the school teaching the kids to make documentarys and then getting them to make mini docs about some of the aspects of cultural renewal that will inevitably take place as a consequence of having to make the film.

"There's a new media project, website, cultural journey throught the Arafura Swamp that's just starting up as well that hopefully will get good involvement from the arts centre there and from some of the painters and so on," he says.

The Arafura Swamp may be a spectacular part of the world, but it could make filming a movie a little difficult.

They'll be shooting just after the wet season so that the swamp has water in it and the magpie geese are there it's about the worst time of the year for mosquitoes.

Rolf is also a little concerned about crocodiles.

"The times when I've been there the numbers of crocodiles that I've seen is enough to frighten anybody off, but I think we'll handle it!" he says.

There are a few aspects of telling a story in Yolgnu which Rolf is also yet to work out.

"I couldn't do it without David and David couldn't do it without me, and it will be a collaboration where we are both relying on each other a great deal.

"I think that what will happen is that largely there will be a close interface between the two of us with each of us specialising in a slightly different area but haven't input into each others area."

David Gulpilil will star in the film and the rest of the roles will be filled by Maningrida locals.

The film will also be partly shot in black and white and in colour.

It sounds like a once in a lifetime event for Rolf, and he says he'll allow himself to get excited once he finishes shooting,"Up until then there's a lot of problem solving to be done, and how to structure it in such a way that we get good material with the money that we've got".

Source: ABC Northern Territory

related links :

• 10 canoes website

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